Scars
by Dex1
Summary: Certain scars will never heal, but for some, sharing the stories behind them can help mitigate the pain. Samcentric.


Disclaimer: I own nothing Supernatural.

Author's Note: There is the chance that I am becoming addicted to one-shots. So, I wanted to do somthing for P. L. Wynter's most recent challenge about scars, but then it kinda turned into something else too. I've never done a Sam-centric story before, but I figured I'd give it a shot. So here it is, a story at least inspired by, if not entirely necessarily in response to said Scar challenge. It is, in case you coulnd't figure it out, from Sam's POV. Please let me know what you think!

* * *

Part of me never wanted to come back. Part of me was ready, more than ready really, to just write her off as a nice girl I met once when out east. And it didn't matter if I couldn't get her face out of my mind, her wide smile, her big round eyes. It didn't matter if every time I smelled roses I thought of her, of her hair and how it felt in my hands, sliding through my fingertips like silk, leaving the flowery scent on my skin even after I let go of every strand. It didn't matter because like all good memories, they would fade and tarnish with time.

But then there was the demon, and the 'accident' that followed. And there was the week spent moving from one bedside to another in that hospital. And there was Dean, who almost didn't make it, whom I promised I would do anything for if only he'd wake up. And then he did, and the first thing he said when he was released, after saying goodbye to Dad for the umpteenth time in our lives, was, "Let's go see Sarah." And I had no choice, because, as he pointed out when I first objected, I had promised him _anything_.

So we drove and drove and drove and finally showed up at her door where she flashed that smile, that smile that I had been trying so hard to forget. And she set us up in separate guestrooms – they must have had a dozen in that house – and fed us and talked to us and made us laugh and made us feel…normal, for the first time in a long time. And then, when everyone else had gone to bed, she took me on a walk through the estate. I never thought I'd be with a girl who lived on an estate.

The moon was full and the sky was clear enough that hundreds of stars were poking through the dark canvas of night, and it was beautiful. And she, her dark hair shimmering in the moonlight, falling down her shoulders, across her back, was beautiful. So different from Jess. Jess, whose light honey-colored hair would be almost blinding in the midday sun, but as dull as my own once it set. Night and day.

I pull her close, run my fingers through her hair, breathe in…roses. _And Jess hated roses._ She leans into me and we kiss, long and soft. And I run my hands down her body, her arms, waist, hips, ass. My fingers work their way under the waistband of her jeans, her panties, press into the cool skin beneath before leaving and making a trail back up, up, up, along her spine. _Long and soft._

She peels off her shirt, slips out of her pants and takes a step a back. "It's okay," she says, grabbing my hand. "No one will see us." _Jess._ "We're completely alone out here." _Jessica._ And she leads me away, out under a tree.

I stand and watch as she sits, leans back onto the earth, her hair falling splayed around her. And it must seem strange, I must look strange, because when she glances up at me she laughs, smiles and laughs. It makes me feel warm, welcome, safe. When Jess laughed it was like everything stopped, just stopped, and the only sound in the room, in the whole world, was her beautiful, riotous laugh. It made me feel…buoyant, like I could just float above everything, leave all the bad stuff behind, move on without a second thought. But Sarah's keeps me grounded. This is no dream. I used to have to remind myself of that with Jess, not with Sarah.

She is real.

I take off my shirt, my pants, and fall down into her, running my fingers along her skin once again. _She's real, she's real._ Her legs wrap around me, around my waist, and that feeling washes over me again. _Warm, welcome, safe_. We kiss and we kiss and we kiss, and each time it's the same but different. Each time it's long and lingering and soft and sweet. She's sensual where Jess was sexy, pliable where Jess was stiff. I unhook her bra and peel it from her body, press into her more, let my fingers streak down her side where they hook around the lacy panties and pull them down, down, down. _Long and soft._

Jess always wore cotton, bikini briefs or those boy shorts. Never lace or silk or… She was strong and lean and pure, if not innocent. Childlike. But as I thrust into Sarah and hear her moan, a woman's moan of unadulterated desire, pure pleasure…_night and day_.

I pull her closer, as tight to me as she can go, and I feel her skin next to mine and for a moment I wonder where she begins and I end. I melt into her and kiss her again, harder this time. She pulls away, and turns her head, bites her lip, and moans again. I throw my head back and let the warmth of her slide down my throat, the taste of her simmer on my tongue. She presses her cheek to mine and I can feel her hot breath in my ear, her parted lips grazing my lobe. And I wait. But she says nothing.

Jess used to talk during sex. Sometimes it was as simple as, 'yes!' Occasionally she'd call out my name, or even whisper it. _Sam._ It would roll off her tongue as easily as her own, never sounding foreign or strained. It was my name spoken as I longed to hear it, sweet, familiar, wrapped in love. Then there were the times she'd want to talk dirty. At first it was uncomfortable, always bringing on a bright red blush. But that never stopped her from going on and on. And she would laugh when I tried. _Buoyant._

But Sarah doesn't speak. There's no dirty talk, no affirmations of love or shouts of pleasure. There's no soft whisper of my name. And I like it. It's all about touch and feel. Touching her one place, one way. _Feeling_ her response, muscles loosen or tighten under my palms, my thighs. She inhales deeply, shallowly, then spurts or shudders air out. I don't know which is good and which is better, but I'm enjoying the hell out of trying to figure it out.

I'm enjoying the hell out of trying to figure _her_ out.

I don't fell guilty. I don't, I don't, I don't. I loved Jess. _Loved._ But she's gone now. And Sarah's here, with me, under me, all around me. _Warm, welcome, safe._ And she's real. Her touch is real, her breath in my ear, her skin on my fingertips, her hair stuck to my body, her sweat mixed with mine, her warmth, her wetness, her rigid thighs and clenching hands and too soft skin and tight long moans and…

_Jess._

No. This is real. This is real. Thisisreal. Thisisreal. _This is real._

When it's over she doesn't speak, not a word. But she raises her hands up to my face, sweeps the hair from my eyes and cups my cheeks. She looks up at me and smiles, and I know this can't be Jess, she's nothing like Jess. Because her smile always lit up the room, the entire building. Everyone knew, everyone could see. But Sarah's isn't like that. Sarah's smile is just for me, not everyone to share. Forget the room, when she smiles it lights up my heart. And maybe it's just because that corner of my being has been dark for too, too long, maybe it's just so blinding that that's why I can't see straight, can't see how wonderful and perfect and _real_ this is. But whatever the reason, when I look at her smile, it hurts.

I roll off her and looks away, stare up at the stars, feign exhaustion or some kind of disassociated bliss, whatever will keep her from knowing that I turned away from her on purpose, because I really can't stand to see her. But I don't want to hurt her. I don't want her to get angry or sad or disappointed. I don't want her to leave. And she doesn't. She scoots closer to me and lays her head on my shoulder, her hand on my chest, and I close my eyes and breathe her in.

"When I was five," she says, her voice light but deep, almost sleepy, "I fell out of this tree." She raises her hand off my chest and points up into the boughs. "I liked to climb even though my father said I shouldn't, said it wasn't _ladylike_." I laugh, because, really, Sarah is a lady. More than that, she's a woman. "I had on this pretty little yellow dress. That's what remember most, how I ripped and stained my pretty little yellow dress." She exhales deeply and rolls her leg over the top of mine, pulls it into the air and points down at a thin silvery line on her knee. "Had to have surgery," she says, and I can tell just from the tone that she's smiling. "Dislocated it," she breathes out, an unspoken pride chasing the words into the air.

She's a lady, but she's still _real_.

"What about you?" she asks.

I look down at her and see her eyes shining up at me. Her smile is small, small enough that I can take it, like the flame of a candle instead of a blazing torch. It doesn't hurt, it feels good. "What about me?"

"I showed you mine, now you show me yours," she says in such a playful way that I can't help but be disarmed.

"Uh," I say through a smile of my own, and I try to think of ways I can avoid this.

But she doesn't let me. She pulls herself on top of me, letting her legs intertwine with mine, rubbing long deep lines into my calves with her toes. "Nuh uh," she says, tapping me with a disdainful finger on my chin. "Fair's fair." I laugh, really laugh, for the first time since we were inside eating pizza with Dean, watching some old movie and listening to her commentary of it. She was funny. She is funny. Like Jess, but different. _Jess._

"Sarah," I hear myself say, and I'm not sure why. Maybe just to remind myself. Maybe to correct myself. Maybe just because I like way her name sounds as it works its way up my throat, or the way tastes when it rolls off my tongue.

"How about," she says, moving my hair off my face with her fingertips, "this one." I feel her brush gently over the long scar on my forehead. It's right near the hairline, almost always hidden, and it's faded more and more over the last several months. I'm surprised she even found it at all.

"That," I say, removing her hand and holding it in my own, "is a long story."

"Oh. Well," she says with a sigh, "I have time."

I bring her hand down to my mouth and kiss each fingertip, softly, fleetingly, before saying simply, "Deva."

She crinkles up her nose like a little girl and asks, "What is that like some kind of ghost or something?"

I cock my head and wonder for a moment why she would say something like that. A ghost? But then I remember that this is Sarah and Sarah knows. I don't have to watch what I say around her. I don't have to hide behind whatever random bits of normalcy there were in my life when telling her about my past. I don't have to lie or evade. This is Sarah. "A demon, actually." I say it and immediately regret it when I watch her face fall. "It wasn't a big deal really," I try to cover. "Just your run of the mill sharp-clawed shadow demon."

"I guess it can't be all digging up graves and burning bodies, huh?"

"No," I say, and wrap an arm around her shoulders, press my fingers gently into her neck. She ducks her head and buries her face into my chest. I wonder if I've upset her, scared her, caused her to worry. I know what that feels like, to be so concerned for someone's well-being, to care so much about them and wonder how they can seemingly care so little for themselves. I know that feeling well. It's the one that did its damndest to keep me from her. To keep me from hurting her.

But she doesn't really seem upset. Her breathing's steady and soft, and while she lies there, still and comfortable, her fingers play in my hair, tug on my ear, make tracks down my neck. All slow and soft and sweet. Then they stop at one spot on my neck and retrace it several times over, and I know she's found another one. And so does she. Without even looking up to make sure it really is a scar, she asks, "What about this one?"

At first I don't want to answer. Why should I? It's not like it's a funny story about being a careless kid climbing a tree and taking a tumble, like all careless kids eventually do. It's just another mark of evil, another brand to remind me of what I do. Another mysterious code that when properly translated tells a story of hard times, misspent youth and fights with dangerous foes. But then I remember the last time I felt this way, the last time I wanted to hide my scars, tuck them away so that no one would see, cry to anyone who did that they were mine, mine and no one else's. Nobody's business but my own. And even then, eventually, I had to talk, tell Dean about the dreams I'd had. The one dream that did the most damage. _Jess._ And really, it wasn't even the dream that hurt, it was knowing that I didn't say anything, that I kept quiet, kept it hidden away.

So without even realizing that I've decided to tell her, to let her learn the story of all my scars if that's what she wants, I say, "_That_ was a poltergeist."

"Really?" she asks, shifting her head so that she can gaze up at me.

"Yup."

"What happened?"

A lot, I think, but I offer her the condensed version. "Things started flying, all around the house. I was in the living room where this huge collection of LP's was, and they just started flying out of their jackets. Swirled at me like Frisbees."

"You're kidding?" she says with an honest, interested, almost childlike quality to her voice.

"Nope. Almost got my head taken off by a record. Probably a crappy one too. I think most of them were country." She laughs into my chest and I hug her closer, glad I didn't share the rest. This one could be almost a funny story, just a little poltergeist, just a little scratch. Never mind that it was my first real job, and the first time I had ever seen anything like that up close. Never mind that I stood in that room stunned, frozen, and probably would have been killed – by a flying record no less – if Dean hadn't thrown me to the floor. Never mind that Dad was so scared when he saw my gushing throat, that he probably thought I was dying, had my throat slit wide open. Never mind that my mistake put a look on my father's face that I will never forget, and always regret. _I've killed my son_, it said. _I've killed my own son._

I shiver at the memory and she shifts in my grasp, pulls her head up to look at me and says, "Maybe we should go back in." I lock eyes with her and start to say 'no, no, no. We can't go.' But then I feel her shake a bit on top of me and I realize that she's right, it's time. Even though the weather was pleasant earlier, warm even, before the sun went down, it's chilly now. Just lying here, naked in the grass, sweat quickly evaporating off our bodies, leaving behind a cool sheen to our skin, it's perfect. But it's also over. This isn't a dream. This is real. And in reality people can catch a cold lying around all night naked in the grass.

She gets up first and I just watch. I watch her as she slips back into her lacy underwear, so ladylike, so un-Jess like. I watch the way the light dances off her hair, her pale skin, highlighting every inch I earlier touched, but only now see. As beautiful and stunning and perfect as she felt beneath me, she looks just the same in this light. _Long and soft_.

She throws a quick glance over her shoulder, sees me watching and lets out an airy laugh before picking up my clothes and tossing them to me. "Get dressed, Romeo," she says as she pulls her T-shirt on over her head. I do, and as I do I can feel her eyes on me. _Fair's fair._ "What's that?" she asks slyly, and I feel my cheeks burn in a blush, knowing immediately exactly what she's talking about. Another scar, this one long and jagged, but luckily seldom seen. She walks over to me and nudges my pants back down, runs her fingers over the silvery rope of skin that stretches from the top of my thigh to the middle of my left butt cheek. "Awkward spot for a ghost to get ya," she says, no more than an inch from my ear.

"Yeah, well, that one's a little different," I say, ducking my head in embarrassment.

"Let me guess. A werewolf?" She laughs as she says it and I wonder for a minute if she thinks they're not real.

"More like…what's that saying? One Tequila, two Tequila, three Tequila, floor. Only to get to the floor I had to go through my roommate's glass coffee table."

"Sam! I'm surprised at you!"

I pull up my pants and zip them before turning around to face her, hoping the blush is gone, or at least faded enough from my face so she won't see. "It was my one and only typical _college experience_," I say, and think about how true that is. I never had more than one drink again at any given party in school, not even on my 21st birthday. Having a bunch of guys you barely know laughing hysterically as they pick chunks of glass out of your ass will do that to you.

I never told Dean about that party. He's never seen the scar. Neither has Dad. In fact the only person who's ever seen it, outside of a group of drunk 'friends' and the highly amused ER doctor, was Jess. She's the only one.

She _was _the only one.

Sarah kisses me again and then moves away slowly, holding my hand at arm's length trying to pull me along with her. And I follow, throw my shirt back on, do up my belt, and follow this girl, this woman, to wherever she leads me.

She glances back with that smile that hurts and soothes and warms and pierces, and she says, "You're one very scarred boy, aren't you Sam Winchester?"

And I smile and nod and say under my breath, "You have no idea."


End file.
